Chapter 76 Jordan
Jordan
Now
I leave the apartment and make my way down to the ground floor, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, which is noisy and might attract unwanted attention.
The lobby is empty and silent, and no one’s around.
The lights are dimmed at this time of night to save energy.
The chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling above me casts long shadows across the marble floor, and it’s all I can do not to change my mind and flee back upstairs.
There’s something creepy about old buildings in the dead of night.
They take on a different character, like some bricks-and-mortar Jekyll and Hyde.
A shiver runs through me.
But I have no intention of turning back, because I really want to see what’s behind that apartment door.
I make one concession that most characters in slasher movies never do.
I take out my phone and fire off a quick text to Sam, telling him what I’m about to do, even though I think there’s a good chance that he won’t see it because he always puts his phone on Do Not Disturb when he’s sleeping.
Still, it makes me feel better as I creep toward Angelo’s desk, step around it, and go into his office.
The wall safe is easy to find, mounted beside the door and hidden from the sight of anyone in the lobby.
It only takes me a moment to punch the code in; then I’m rewarded by a click when the lock disengages.
I swing the door open to see rows of keys hanging on small hooks.
Each one of them is labeled for a room or apartment at the Glendale.
I see the key for unit 4C—my unit—and keys for the other apartments on my floor.
A crazy thought enters my head. A notion to forget about the ground floor unit and grab the key for Kalina’s apartment instead. Let myself in and suffocate her while she sleeps. Put a pillow over her face and press down until she stops breathing.
It’s a fantasy, of course. I would never do anything so heinous, even to a woman like her. But the wicked thought provides me with a brief moment of perverse pleasure before I turn my attention back to the task at hand and find the key for the ground floor apartment.
After closing the safe, I leave the office, looking around quickly to make sure I’m still alone in the lobby.
Then I hurry to the apartment and go to put the key in the lock.
But now I hesitate. What if it isn’t empty?
Sure, Angelo claimed that no one lives here, but the residents of this building have lied to me before.
After talking to Addison, I have confirmation of that fact.
And even if it is empty, do I really want to know what lies on the other side of this door?
Am I opening a Pandora’s box that I will wish had remained closed?
Maybe. But I’ve come this far, and that text message was clear, even if its sender is still a mystery.
You need to see the apartment on the ground floor.
I slip the key into the lock and turn it.
Then I push the door open and step into the apartment.
To my relief, it appears to be empty. The lights are off, and a stale, musty odor hangs in the air.
I turn and close the door, wincing when the hinges creak, even though I know it’s unlikely that anyone will hear it.
I can barely see. There isn’t even any illumination from the streetlamps and occasional passing cars on Storrow Drive because heavy curtains are drawn tight across the windows.
I fumble for the light switch, snap it on, then hurry through the foyer and deeper into the apartment.
What I see when I enter the living room makes me hesitate, then take a frantic step back toward the door, because it sure doesn’t look empty and unlivable, like Angelo claimed when I asked him about this apartment.
There’s a sofa, chairs, and a coffee table in the living room.
Pictures on the walls. A paperback book sits on the kitchen island with a bookmark poking out of it, and several items are next to the sink as if they’ve just been washed.
Plates and a mug and knives and forks. Shit.
Someone really is living here, and I’m trespassing.
I backpedal some more, afraid to turn my back on the apartment in case someone appears from the bedroom, groggy and with eyes full of sleep, to confront me.
But no one does, and then I notice something else.
The entire place is coated in a thick layer of dust. There are dust bunnies on the floor and cobwebs hanging down from the ceiling light.
What at first appeared to be signs of habitation now strike me as abandonment.
As if whoever lived here got out of bed one morning and walked away, never to come back, leaving everything they owned behind.
My racing heart slows.
I glance over my shoulder toward the foyer.
There’s a coat closet to the right of the front door.
I walk over and open it, to see coats and jackets on hangers and two pairs of boots on the floor atop a plastic shoe tray.
A fresh blast of musty air laden with dust wafts out of the small space.
I close the door again, then go back into the living room and look around.
Beyond the obvious—that this apartment has been empty for a long time—I see nothing to indicate why anyone would want me to come here.
But I do notice other things. For a start, the layout is different from my unit on the fourth floor.
The foyer is smaller, the living room bigger, and it’s shaped more like an oblong.
To the left of the kitchen is a dining area with a wood table and four chairs.
The floors are also wood, although nothing like my floors.
They’re a dark oak color like the floor in the Glendale’s library.
There’s a fireplace with a polished wood mantel.
I spot a picture frame sitting on it and cross the room, then lean close to study it.
The photo is of two young women at a college graduation.
I don’t recognize either of them. I don’t see anything else of interest.
I go to the kitchen and open cabinets, where I find more plates and mugs and bowls, kitchen appliances, pots and pans.
When I look in the pantry, I get a surprise.
It’s stocked with food: cans of soup and vegetables like corn and beans, boxes of rice and assorted cereals.
Like everything else, it looks old. The cereal boxes have been chewed by mice.
The labels are peeling off some of the tinned goods.
I pick up a can of soup and look at the expiration date.
It hasn’t been edible for well over a decade.
Other items have similarly expired dates.
I close the pantry door again, then leave the kitchen and walk back through the living room to a door on the other side, which I assume must be the bedroom.
That’s when I discover what the sender of that text message really wanted me to see. Because when I open the door and step inside, I cross the threshold into hell.